goonys evil twin

I'm all for it. I've been calling for some sort of creative work with pairing of starters on certain days. It's not an ideal situation, but it's better than just throwing guys out there and hoping one of them will throw a complete game shutout. I'd like to see Hill paired up with somebody as well. I'd strongly consider making the rotation look like this: Zambrano Prior Maddux Wood/Marshall Hill/Guzman Williamson Ohman Howry Eyre Dempster The 4 paired up guys all are talented enough to dominate over short stretches of a game, and some of them can be used occasionally between outings in a long relief role. See if you can get Wood stretched out to 70, then 80 and even 90 pitches as the season goes on. Let Marmol get his much needed innings in the minors pitching every 5 days. Save Marshall from going way past his past workloads, but keep guys on regular rotations. I see no reason not to experiment with something like this, given the situation. You'd still have 5 everyday relievers, with the ability to call-up Novoa or Wuertz at any time if somebody is overused. You'd also have guys available in between starts for long relief duty if needed. Stagger the combo guys so that it's something like Zambrano, Wood/Marshall, Maddux, Prior, Hill/Guzman, Zambrano, etc.

I was attacking the ignorance of the idea. At no point in this thread have I said anything about you. I'd appreciate the same treatment from you. Agreed. As to the latter, and at least against RHP, yes it is. Murton v. RHP - .603 OPS Nevin v. RHP - .732 OPS Unless human phsyiology has somehow changed without my knowing, there are still only two types of pitchers. So, any discussion regarding whether Nevin or Murton gives the Cubs a better chance has two necessary components -- Nevin and Murton v. RHP and Nevin and Murton v. LHP. So, it seems to me that discussing whether Nevin or Murton gives the Cubs a better chance v. RHP is a fairly important component of this discussion. You must have missed the part where I said that "if Murton plays every game for the rest of the season, you won't hear a peep from me." I don't have any problem with the notion that playing Murton right now is in the best long term interest of the organization. I don't think it's right, however, to pretend that Murton -- right now -- is better against RHP than Nevin. He's not. Why do you insist on only talking about RHP? It's absurd. I'm not arguing who is better against RHP. I am arguing against the uninformed idea that Nevin gives the Cubs a better chance to win by playing right now, against everybody. They both suck vs RHP. Murton rakes against LHP, while Nevin is okay against LHP (but has been terrible in a Cubs uniform against LHP). If you want to say that a platoon of Murton and Nevin gives the Cubs the best chance to win, well go right ahead. But you can't say starting Nevin everyday gives them the best chance to win. And you can't concentrate exclusively on the against RHP split, which is what you are doing.

Please, attack the post, not the players! :lol: This is starting to sound a little like the deck chairs on the Titanic, which of those chairs was the best one? Where did it look the best again? BCB The lounge chair on the port side, you know the one that couldn't recline all the way but was at least stuck in a somewhat comfortable position.

Tim's idea of the sliding scale is something I'd like to see use. He used to have a chart on this site (maybe he still does) where you could see how many disaster, mediocre, quality and great starts a guy had. A disaster start was when you gave up as many runs (earned or unearned, as innings pitched). 6 ip/ 3 r was still quality, but you got more credit for going 7/1 or 8/2. I would argue that a 6 inning 1 run outing is at least as quality as a 7 inning 3 run outing.

There is no support for that argument. Nevin sucks right now. If you insist on talking about right now, you have to look at right now, and Nevin is doing nothing right now. He's playing against RHP and LHP, even though Murton hits better against LHP. Nevin has shown, conclusively, that he's not an everyday player. He's a bench player. The best way he can help the team is by coming off the bench late, and by occasionally starting. Playing everyday for 3 weeks is an incredibly stupid way to use an old man who has sucked for 2 years as a starter.

Don't give me the attack the poster crap, you decided to talk about ignorance. Nevin's career is enough to justify not playing him everyday right now. Somebody said he's driving in runs and giving the Cubs a better chance right now, and that's just not true. You decided to talk about just against RHP, but that's not the discussion. Nevin has faced lefties this past week. Furthermore, you need to let kids fight through tough stretches as they develop. You don't need to give 35 year olds who have sucked for 2 years time to fight through stretches.

And yet, your tiny one week sample size utterly dwarfs Murton's numbers v. RHP for the entire season. Those are Nevin's overall numbers, not just against RHP. Nevin has faced a lot of LHP recently, even though Murton's numbers dwarf his against LHP. Don't talk to me about wilful ignorance, your non-stop bashing of Matt Murton and inability to see the need for young players to fight through tough stretches is epitome of fan ignorance.

The Cubs will keep it respectable and lose 6-2.

Quoted for truth. Except in reality, that's not true. Nevin is hitting .231/.310/.346 in the last 7 days, with 1 RBI. And that's playing everyday, while Murton has been a pinch runner and occasional pinch hitter. Phil's got 1 extra base hit in his last 9 games, many of them against LHP. And Murton hits better than him against LHP. Nevin had an extremely brief (not to mention mild) hot streak when he first started playing for the Cubs. But he's been ice cold since, and has been ice cold for most of the year, and just as cold last year. He's a pinch hitter at best. If he's going to help the team, it's by getting an at bat a game hitting for the pitcher, and the occasional start. Anything more than that hurts the team's chances, both now, and in the future.

And Pierre will prolly get arb near what he is making right now ($5.5 mill), if not more. And for a "hitter" like Pierre, it doesn't make sense to offer arb to him, knowing there is NO way he is going a deal like he wants. But knowing the Cubs, and their "value chart," (ie Perez, Nefit) they'd prolly re-sign Pierre to a 4 yr $40 million dollar contract, and hold the "speed don't slump" press conference. I would expect him to get more than he's making right now, and I would expect him to accept arbitration if it's offered, unless he goes on a tear and draws greater interest.

clearly he is

I rather like the idea of sending a number of guys on this team to the glue factory. If the team doesn't get any better when all these guys come back, would you call it a horsegag?

06:$13M, 07:$13.5M

I would think Tony Gwynn probably did it sometime in his career considering the Padres had some bad teams. Billy Buckner and Bill Madlock did it for the Cubs. Larry Walker did it in 2001. Ichiro in 2004.

Jones is a pretty good hitter vs righties, which is more than we can say for Matt so far. Nevin is the dead weight. He's been awful for most of the year, including the past two weeks.

Can't win 'em all man, quit being greedy.

Ooooooooooooooooo, never would have thought they'd slip back to 20 under. The Cubs just need to go 52-32, .619 W% the rest of the way to get back to .500 by the end of the season.

This is true, yet I've seen other managers, including Baker, bring a reliever in only to have him IBB the first guy he sees. Stupid move. Kyle Farnsworth in the NLCS, anyone? Among others.

This is true, yet I've seen other managers, including Baker, bring a reliever in only to have him IBB the first guy he sees. Stupid move. Yes, yes it is. Over at brewerfan we're expressing some surprise that Yost actually brought in Turnbow to face a hitter in the ninth. He normally waits for the 10th?

(To everybody) Right now....who would you rather be a fan of: The New York Knicks, or the Chicago Cubs? The Knicks. Why? Because I don't give a crap about basketball so it wouldn't hurt so much. Yeah, I know that's cheating.

This is true, yet I've seen other managers, including Baker, bring a reliever in only to have him IBB the first guy he sees. Stupid move.

"We've got a chance to make it respectable," Baker said of the season. "When have I had Michael and D-Lee in the lineup at the same time and [Phil] Nevin and the rest of the guys? I think we can make it respectable." Way to remind people that you've yet to be able to trot out the killer Lee, Barrett, Nevin lineup that all the league is fearful of.

He replaces Womack on the roster. Correct? When was Williams called up?

So they are sacrificing a slow runner into scoring position for Pierre to drive in, interesting.

Eating Jones's contract would not be a good idea. I'm all for trading him. But the point in trading him is that he's overpaid for what he brings to the table, not that he brings nothing to the table. You eat the contracts of guys' whose presence on the team takes away from your squad, ie. Rusch, Neifi, Womack etc. If you are going to pay Jones, you might as well play him. And I'd be all for a Murton/Jones platoon with a good corner OF on the other side.